Subj : C64 BASIC - what's faster INT() or %? Plus benefits of DEF FN A()
To   : All
From : Shaun Bebbington
Date : Mon Apr 16 2018 09:20:04

There seems to be two ways to do integers on the C64 (and yes I know floats are 
fastest), I was wondering about these two methods of generating a random 
positive number between 1 and 64 inclusive:

10 X=INT(64*RND(0)+1)

or

10 X%=64*RND(0)+1

The latter saves two whole bytes, but is it faster to convert to integer 
directly with the INT keyword, or is the implicit declaration below faster?

Second question, let's say you want to generate a random number in multiple 
places, you could use the above several times in a listing, but one could also 
define a function as I understand it, like:

0 DEF FN A(X)=X*RND(0)

So each time in your listing, you will have,

10 X%=FN A(39): Y%=FN A(24)
....
100 S%=FN A(10)+1: D%=FN A(10)+1

etc...

Other than less typing throughout the program (where you might have lots of 
repeated random number generation in this example), are there any benefits to 
using CBM functions? Does it save bytes overall would be perhaps one that I 
could think of.

Many thanks,

Shaun.

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